By placing us in Decoud's head here, in the very hour of Separatism, Conrad is able to present scathing denunications of the dream-ideal quite unlike the celebratory passages in Part One, such as those on Giorgio's campaigning and the young railway workers' faith in progress.

Why does Decoud still care about his plan, since it was based on a future with Antonia that he now admits will never happen? Below we find that he still hopes for unity with Antonia , but that comes after the scheme to dispatch the silver. Here, the palpable impression is that he is running on automatic, that his runaway dream-ideal has swept him up and is carrying him beyond the marks of his original purpose, a pattern repeated by the other characters' dream-ideals, notably those of Charles Gould and Holroyd.